Juliet Learns to Lie
by Nefertiri's Handmaiden
Summary: "Juliet realizes she's still wearing his suit jacket, much too big for her and smelling of Axe. She pushes it off her shoulders and drops it on the coffee table. She pulls that goddamned receipt from the pocket and stares at it. She wonders how much of him is just a story." In the wake of learning Shawn's truth, Juliet grapples and eventually reaches some answers.


Juliet Learns to Lie

By Nefertiri's Handmaiden

Summary: Juliet realizes she's still wearing his suit jacket, much too big for her and smelling of Axe. She pushes it off her shoulders and drops it on the coffee table. She pulls that goddamned receipt from the pocket and stares at it. She wonders how much of him is just a story.

* * *

"I'm good at what I do. And what I do, it's good, isn't it?"

"What are you talking about? Are you telling me this is all a lie?"

"Please don't make me answer that."

Juliet can't believe she's been such a fool.

* * *

The cab driver doesn't ask why she's crying, for which Juliet is very grateful. Her chest feels so tight she can barely breathe and she can feel mascara streaking down her face, gritty and sour as it mixes on her lips with the salt from her tears. Her vision is blurry as she unlocks the door and enters, flipping on the light. She drops her keys on the floor.

She half expects Shawn to come bursting in only a few minutes behind her and puts the chain on the door.

Their home feels dark and cold and empty. She looks at the throw pillows on the couch, askew from where Shawn leaves them after he sets one on his lap as he sits. She takes in the box of Fruit Loops on the kitchen counter. She sees the MP3 player he left on the dresser in their bedroom, loaded up with his favorite tunes from the '80s and then glances toward the unmade bed where his pajamas are tucked half under his pillow, and has to turn around immediately and retreat back to the living room, which is safer. She realizes she's still wearing his suit jacket, much too big for her and smelling of Axe. She pushes it off her shoulders and drops it on the coffee table. She pulls that goddamned receipt from the pocket and stares at it.

She wonders how much of him is just a story.

* * *

It's a couple of hours before she feels certain that he's not going to try to come home tonight. She finishes assembling her firearm again for what feels like the millionth time and leaves it and her stopwatch on the kitchen table.

Finally, she peels out of her dress. She leaves it on the floor in the bathroom and steps into the shower. His shampoo catches her eye, and she has to set it on the floor outside the curtain before she can she scrub at her hair and body, trying to wash away the day.

She tries the bedroom again, and only manages it enough to grab some pajamas and then flee back to the living room. She sets up a little bed for herself on the sofa after dumping all the throw pillows on the floor under the coffee table and tries to sleep. She can't.

The couch smells like Shawn.

Her phone rings four times overnight with Shawn's tone. She ignores him every time.

When her phone blares Carlton's ringtone early, she finds herself grateful. She can't force herself to sound cheerful when she answers and she thinks he notices, but he doesn't mention it.

"Got a case, partner," he starts. "Spencer-" and her heart drops "-came across an assault victim last night. He says she was bleeding in the road. Jane Doe. Chief wants us over at the hospital now."

Juliet gathers herself. "Meet you there," she says, and hangs up.

She braves the bedroom again, gathers a black pantsuit, and dresses in the bathroom. She hides his electric razor in the smaller medicine cabinet so she doesn't have to look at it and throws his hair gel in the garbage.

* * *

His eyes light up when she walks in and she can't bring herself to blow him off when he asks how she is.

"Our entire relationship is based on lies," she says, still overwhelmed with the fact that this is how it is.

"And laughter, and laser tag, and love," he adds, and he looks honest when she says it, but Lord knows she's been fooled by that before.

When he mumbles, "you're not gonna tell anyone about the-?" she feels the rage building up in her core reach its boiling point.

"Don't worry. Is that all you care about?" she demands, and brushes past him because if she has to look at him for one more second she's surely going to slap him.

She doesn't tell, though.

She doesn't know why.

* * *

With her fury at Shawn, she and Carlton are on precisely the same page today, which is good. She glares at Shawn as he stands in the road, hands at his temples, trying to remember what happened last night. She can't even feel pity for him though he's wearing yesterday's clothes and they're covered in blood and she can see the headache in his eyes.

She huffs when he finally tells them which way to go, and when he gets snippy with "It may not have been what you thought it was, but it's still pretty effective," she's outraged that he thinks has a right to be defensive here.

She's not the liar.

* * *

Juliet goes to a club.

She's dressed to the nines with a minidress that shows off her legs and heels that are unbelievably high and narrow. She's showing a ton of cleavage. Her hair is falling around her face. Her eye makeup is dark and her lips red. If ever a woman was screaming _pick me up_ , it was Juliet.

She has a very clear and simple plan: She's going to get rip-roaring drunk, find someone who doesn't look at all like Shawn, go with him to his apartment, and have wild get-over-that-lying-bastard sex.

The plan goes very smoothly at first. Guys keep buying her drinks, and soon she's three sheets to the wind. Then she sees a guy who's Buzz McNab tall with blond hair and brown eyes. He's movie-star smokin' and he's in expensive clothes, but he's not smiling and he's certainly not funny. He could not be less Shawn. She flutters her eyelashes and tells him her name is Helene.

She makes it all the way back to his place. When he comes in for a kiss, she doesn't move away. She lets him for about a second and a half.

Then the _wrongness_ of it overcomes her and she shoves him away and rises from the couch so quickly she nearly loses her balance on her heels.

"What's-?" he starts, but she cuts him off.

"I can't," she says. "I can't."

His eyebrows furrow and _oh, no, he's angry_. He rises and reaches to grab her. "What the hell?" he demands. His hand his tight on her arm, so tight it will bruise. She's scared.

He's too much not like Shawn, who never presumed physical affection from her, even when they were in a committed relationship; who always backed off the second she indicated no and respected her and never ever told her what she wanted.

"Let go," she says, adrenaline sobering her. "Now."

He doesn't say anything, just yanks her closer. She stumbles into him. Then she knees him hard in the crotch and then hits his nose hard with the heel of her hand when he doubles over and then flees, just barely remembering to grab her clutch from coffee table.

She's stoic as she hails a cab and rides home. Her fingers start to shake as she unlocks the door. Her eyes water as she closes it behind her and turns the deadlock. The second bolt slides home, the tears come. Sobbing, she slides down the door and ends up on the floor, her knees every which way and her dress riding up her thighs. She can't breathe and she's all alone.

* * *

She finally calls her mother the next morning.

"Juliet," her mother greets warmly as she answers the phone, and the safety of her mother's voice has her losing it again.

"Mom," she says, her voice cracking already.

"Juliet," her mother says again, and this time her voice is concerned. "What's wrong, angel?"

Juliet breaks down into tears. It's several moments before she composes herself.

"I'm coming out there," her mother says before she can speak. She doesn't know what's wrong yet, but it's so rare for Juliet to cry. "I'll get on a plane today. I can be there tonight."

"No," Juliet says, sniffing. "Mom, you don't need to."

"Julie, what happened?"

"It's Shawn."

"Is he okay?"

"He's not hurt," Juliet says. "He's- It- He lied to me. We broke up."

Her mother is silent for a few moments.

"What kind of lie are we talking about here, Juliet?"

She isn't quite sure how to answer. "The kind my father told you," she finally answered.

"…Ah."

* * *

She can't believe she got roped into going to this damn garden party with Shawn. More, she can't believe how gentle and proficient he is when he leads her around the dance floor. He's talking to her softly, and she almost can't recognize who he is. When her love for him bubbles up again, she gets so sad and angry that she pushes away from him and flees the dance floor, hoping that she's not making too much of a scene.

He comes to find her, interrupting her as she tries to sort through everything she feels. He's calm as he calls her sweetheart and assures her that she can trust him and tries to explain it to her. This is the man she loves, she can't help but think: the man who's steady in the face of the big emotional stuff and somehow that makes her steady, too; the one who's not hiding behind a mask of childish enthusiasm.

But how does that matter when this is who he is? How can he live the lie like this? How can he ask her to do it, too? How can he look so offended when she tells him he doesn't have that right?

He tells her no. She can't believe he just tells her no. How can she love a man so selfish?

"This is what I have, Jules," Shawn tells her, gestures earnest. "This is how I do good."

Bullshit.

* * *

Juliet stops by the mall the evening after the garden party.

She's emotionally drained and upset and how can he be so selfish, but she can't put off going to Victoria's Secret any longer. Since she broke up with Shawn, she can't look at any of her underwear without thinking about the last time Shawn took it off her or the last time she took it off for him, and they've been together long enough that accounts for every pair she's got. She thought it would go away after a few weeks, but it never did. It's exhausting. She finds herself in a state every morning when she tries to get dressed.

So she heads to the mall to get some new panties. There's a 7 for $27 sale this week, and she figures she'll stock up.

She's just entered near the food court and stopped briefly to check her phone - Carlton's texted her about the paperwork she filed last night on the Mitchell case - when she hears a familiar voice say, "Helene?"

It's Lorden. He's approaching her, smiling, in a well-fitting pair of jeans and a dark green T-shirt and carrying a bag from PacSun. He's just as good looking as he was the first time, but she's a little surprised to find herself somehow even less interested.

"Lorden," she greets with as friendly a smile as she can manage. "How are you?"

"Well, thank you," he replies, and sweeps a hand through his hair. "And you?"

"Fine, thanks."

There's a moment of awkward silence, and Juliet knows what he's about to do the second before he does it - a premonition, she thinks to herself derisively.

"Look, I know this might be out of line, but I was just wondering whether things worked out with your ex."

Even though she was expecting the question, it stings. "No," she says, trying to stay cool. "It, um, it… didn't."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Lorden says, and she thinks he actually means it. He takes a breath, seeming to think, and then continues, "Is it too soon for me to ask you out?"

The thing is, she thinks about it. She could do this. She could be Helene. It would be easy, and probably even fun.

But no. It's not in her nature.

Her next smile is strained and doesn't reach her eyes. "I'm sorry," she says. "But the way it ended…" she has to stop to clear her throat and fight back the sudden pressure of tears in her eyes. "I'm just not in any shape to try again right now."

He sees he truth in her eyes. "I understand," he says. "I hope you don't think me too forward-"

"No, no," she interrupts. "You couldn't have known."

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. "Look," he says as he draws out a business card, "if you're ever interested, you can give me a call."

She takes the card, smiles, and he reaches out to shake her had. His grip is firm and warm, practiced. She thinks of Shawn's hands. Lorden must see something in her eyes, because he pulls away and leaves without another word.

She stares at the card in her hands.

So easy.

She crumples it up and throws it in the nearest trash can.

* * *

Shawn figures it out, which Juliet guesses doesn't surprise her. He catches her eye when he's unraveling the whole thing and pauses for a second, and she can see him thinking, though she's not entirely sure what it is that's running through his mind. Then he shrugs it off and goes about unmasking the killer right there in a city commission meeting.

When he's done, he looks at her again and gives a little shrug.

 _I'm good at what I do,_ he'd said. _And what I do, it's good, isn't it?_

Yes. He is. It is.

* * *

Juliet thinks later that it was quite mature of him to tell her no.

It had been a demonstration of self-awareness, at least, to tell her that he knew he'd hurt her but that the deception was part of who he was now.

It was perhaps the most articulate he had ever been when expressing himself to her. The most honest.

But then, he'd been grappling with the secret for a long time, hadn't he?

* * *

"Juliet, I know I don't have the best track record with men, so I don't have a lot of room to talk." Juliet doesn't respond to her mother, because there was nothing she could say that wouldn't be mean. "But you're not me, sweetie. And Shawn is not your father."

"He's a liar," Juliet said, but without the heat she'd had the first time she spilled the tale - well, most of it - to her mother.

"Maybe," he mother says. "But he's still not Frank. And you know, I never thought it was the lying that made you so sad."

"No?" Juliet questions, unable to help herself.

"No. I think it was the leaving."

Juliet and her mother are separated by 3,000 miles, but still she feels as though she's been slapped. She'd never thought of it that way before, but it rings more true than she'd like.

"I-"

"And Shawn, it doesn't seem like he's leaving. It seems like he's trying very hard to stay."

 _It may not have been what you thought it was, but it's still pretty effective,_ he's said.

Yes. It was.

* * *

She'd thought it a crock at first.

But then she caught him staring at her with truth in his eyes, just the way he had in the seconds before the whole thing had fallen apart at Lassiter's wedding. Near the sergeant's desk, Gus was anxious, his brow worried and furrowed.

 _Oh, my God._

She stood.

Shawn seemed to steel himself, his shoulders squaring and the strength of him that she loved showing itself, then he entered the chief's office without knocking.

Juliet stared after him. He was fidgeting, weight shifting, she could see through the open blinds over the office doors, and for a second, from her perspective, he seemed to be stalling. But then he said something that caught the chief's attention. No shouting yet. He hadn't said the words. But the chief looked concerned. Very concerned.

She thought of Shawn's face as he told the man holding a gun to Buzz that he knew he didn't kill his brother, as he reached out to take an ax from her hands, as he demanded a gun while they sped toward the vineyard or lunged toward the bank where his best friend was in danger, as his mind raced to solve Yang's riddle and find his mother, after his father had been shot.

She thought of murderer after murderer that she and Lassiter had cuffed.

 _This is what I have,_ he'd said. _This is how I do good._

Yes, she thought. Yes. This is how he does good.


End file.
